MOSCOW -- President Boris Yeltsin put Russia's troubled economy in the hands of a veteran market reformer, fleshing out a liberal cabinet to replace the Communist-leaning team he abruptly fired two weeks ago.

The cabinet changes -- including the appointment of Mikhail Zadornov as first deputy prime minister in charge of economic and financial policy -- were welcomed by the International Monetary Fund, which has agreed to lend Russia $4.5 billion pending approval of economic-reform legislation in the lower house of Russia's...